Baltimore - Dr. Sardi's Office

We arrived in Baltimore on the afternoon of January 27, 2015. We were somewhat concerned due to an impending blizard but God was once again in our corner and diverted the snow to the north. The airline automatically changed our flight to connect in Charlotte instead of Phillidelphia where it most likely would've been cancelled.

We checked into our hotel and prepared for the most important Doctor's visit of our lives. The next morning we went to Mercy Medical to meet with Dr. Sardi. Once we filled out the preliminary paperwork, we were taken into the office and met Yolanda Brockington, who is the HIPEC Coordinator for Dr. Sardi and his team. She has been an incredible source throughout this journey but she absolutely warmed my heart and won Chad over by walking up to him and giving him the best hug I am pretty sure he's ever gotten.

Chad got his vitals taken and then Dr. Sardi's assistant came in and asked Chad a series of questions before Dr. Sardi came in and gave Chad a physical. We then went into his office and had the actual consult. It was nerve wracking and amazing all at the same time. Dr. Sardi felt Chad was very lucky and most likely caught the disease very early. He went so far as to say that Dr. Swain and company very well may have saved his life by taking the appendix out as an 'after thought' because had it been 3-6 months down the line, the appendix likely would have burst and we would have been looking at a very different scenario.

He had reviewed all the results, scans and such and determined that Chad was a candidate for the surgery, that he was definitely willing and there was a good chance Chad could be cured. Cured. That word could move mountains. He said since there is probability that this was caught early and contained, that his plan was to start with laparoscopy and do a right hemicolectomy. He would remove Chad's right colon and part of the intestine, as well as lymph nodes to check and see if the cancer had spread there. While he was in there, he would look around and see if he sees any evidence of cancer cells or mucous spreading anywhere else.

If he doesn't, that would be the end of the surgery and we would develop a chemo therapy based upon the results of the lymph nodes. If he did see evidence, he would open him up, do the cytoreductive surgery, followed by HIPEC. We wouldn't know what we were looking at until they opened up.

Obviously, we were praying for the best.